Hair ye! Hair ye!
John Aden Lewis
Over the course of my life, I’ve lived in Maryland, Washington D.C., Indiana, Ecuador, Boston, Singapore, New York City, and now, Metuchen, New Jersey. In my travels I’ve discovered that it’s easy to locate an apartment, make friends, unearth a good grocery store, learn the local lingo, and discover tasty restaurants, but it is not easy to find someone to cut my hair correctly. Indeed, entering a barbershop or salon for the first time in a new place is, for me, the emotional equivalent of bungee jumping.
Having endured my share of bad haircuts over the years, I find that it’s not the actual bad haircut that bothers me so much, but rather the weeks of suffering before my next appointment with a new hairchopper, and the possibility of endless months of looking like a balding conehead until I find the right stylist. When I don’t have a regular, skilled hairstylist, making the call to schedule a hair appointment brings up the same kind of nervousness I felt when I asked Lacy Berrington to the eighth-grade dance. (She said no.) Thus, when I first moved to Metuchen, finding the right "hair artiste" was a primary aim. A friend tipped me off to a salon on Main Street called John Roberts. So, armed with a picture of myself as a much younger man with a shorter forehead and an elegant haircut, I entered. After the shampooing, I felt pretty good. One way I judge a salon is by the pre-haircut shampoo. If the shampoo girl (it’s always a girl) can keep the water out of my ears and neither sear nor freeze my scalp, my confidence rises. Meanwhile, my friend also told me that John Roberts was going to be "an experience," but that didn’t fully prepare me for the vortex of blow dryers, buzz clippers, gossip, swivel chairs, shampoo, hair spray and humor that made my first trip to John Roberts more like an event on the social calendar than a haircut.
At the end of my first cut, I looked at myself. My hair looked great. Peace descended upon me as I remembered what an author friend of mine once said about finding a good hairstylist: "Only when you finally find the right person to cut your hair does a place truly become home."
Last week, however, I had the following conversation (and thoughts) while spending time with my personal scissors goddess: "House prices are going crazy in this area," I said. (Nothing like real estate prices to spice up the salon small talk.) "Yeah, I know," she replied, clipping. "We’re planning to move."
"Out of Metuchen?" (Oh, no. Oh no! Please NO!) "Down toward the shore," she said, gleefully. "That’s great," I replied. (Is there any way I can prevent her from going?)
"Yeah, we love it down there."
"I like it myself. You must be excited." (Have you ever seen a grown man cry?)
"It’s cheaper down there, but the house market is still crazy," she continued. "Yeah," I said, "it’s expensive all over the state." (If you ask me to pay your mortgage right now, I’ll do it! Don’t leave me! I can’t take it!)
"It’s a still better value, though."
Finally I blurted out, "You can’t go. Don’t leave me. Who is going to cut my hair? I can’t live without you." She looked at me a little strangely. "Oh, don’t worry," she said. "I’ll still work here once a week."
Hearing this, I felt a little better, but I couldn’t help considering the frightening possibility that, perhaps one day in the future, she might abandon me forever.