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“Ma!” I shout. A thin sheet of light enters through the bedroom window. Spring wrestles with winter outside. “Can you cut my hair?”
My bedroom door is shut.
“Ma!”
A blue comforter covers the New York Yankees boxers I sleep in. It’s 10:00 o’clock. I have to be at work in an hour.
“Ma!”
I shout at the white ceiling once more. A muffled “yes?” is heard, likely from the kitchen or the basement.
“Can you cut my hair?”
It’s Saturday. My father has already opened the Auto Barn two blocks from my house on Jericho Turnpike. It’s just me and my mother, now that my sister is married with a house in Great Neck. But, I hear nothing.
“Ma!” crescendos my voice, a ten second parade of a’s. “Aaaaaaaaa…”
“What, re Demetraki?”
The door swings open, startling, interrupting my call. My mother stands in the doorway, short in stature, mighty with just about everything else. She snaps a yellow glove off her right hand and wipes a bead of sweat from her forehead. A bin of laundry hides behind her.
“Can you cut my hair?” I mumble, pulling the cover up to my lips.
She sighs, pushing back short brown strands. “You know I cut it last week, right?”
I brush a hand over my scalp. A tickle of hair grazes my skin.
“I know. But it’s not my fault my hair grows lightning fucking fast.”
“Must you curse?”
“I’m 27 years old.”
“I don’t care.”
Silence halts our conversation. We stare at each other. She taps her foot. I scratch my head.
“Get a chair from the garage,” she says, turning towards the hallway. “Meet me in the family room.”
I started losing my hair when I was finally old enough to buy booze legally. It bothered me, initially, forced to adjust to a life without the hairstyles I had since left behind. I started with The Flip, squeezing enough gel onto my hands to make you think I was about to spike up all of Chewbacca’s hair. I then let my hair grow, imitating John Stamos in Full House as best as I could. Then different variations of mohawks, faux hawks, etc. I didn’t want to accept the transformation.
My mother opens the shades to the sliding door in the family room, revealing the green grass of my backyard. Parts of a deck are visible, a barbecue somewhere off in the far corner. The wood of the deck is fading, chipping at the edges. I unfold a chair and sit. The buzzer is plugged in and adjusted to the right setting. It meets my head.
“Let’s make this quick,” I say. “Gotta be at work in half an hour.”
“Who told you to wake up so late?”
“No one.”
She sighs. “Not like there’s much to cut.
Touche, mana. Touche.
My mother has cut my hair since the fifth grade. The job used to belong to my aunt, a hairstylist. She later taught my mother her craft. The job was inherited by someone I trust wholeheartedly. Which is what made losing my hair a bit easier.
The first patch falls to my shoulder. It’s brushed away. I change the channel to the television in front of me.
“Stop moving.”
“Sorry.”
The buzzer drives up the back of my head, breaks, reverses, and switches lanes. I turn my head. A squirrel hurries past the glass of the sliding doors before disappearing. A couple more sit on the fence lining the backyard. Blue jays and cardinals land next to them. They’re civil, like a jury in a courtroom, judging the early stages of the haircut. My mother yanks my head back towards the television and the buzzer rings.
Right now, I like my head all but shaved; a thin, flat lawn of dark brown. It has grown a lot since the last haircut. More hair appears right above both of my ears, leaving the center of my round head more exposed. No hair sprouts from the sides of my forehead, just a skinny strip down the middle that has decided to stick around.
My mother gently moves the buzzer across that area. I tell her to get rid of it, but she typically leaves a little more in the front. I tell her that I want to be completely bald, she looks at me and always says,
“Not yet.”
I peer towards the backyard once more, towards the grass a soccer ball has rolled through from the kick of my foot, that a lawnmower has trudged through from my tired, sweaty pushes. I have lived in this house all my life. Hair loss was something I associated with getting older. It wasn’t supposed to happen while I still slept ten feet from my parent’s bedroom. Had I failed to launch just because my hair left before I did?
“Almost done,” my mother assures me.
Bits of hair fall to my shoulder again. A hand brushes it to the floor. A few animals remain on the chained fence, separating our house from the neighbors I used to roam the streets with on our BMX bikes. Most have left.
It gets colder in the winter now, and harder to run in the summer without a bandana wrapped around my forehead looking like I just trained with Mr. Miyagi. Mornings are easier. I don’t buy shampoo anymore. And, I’m happy with the way it looks. It complements my full beard. But the mirror often reminds me of dependency. Of staying. Of a part of me that needs rediscovering.
My mother shuts off the buzzer, places it onto a small blue table standing next to the sliding doors, and picks up a trimmer. She flicks it on and starts shaping around each ear. She then moves to the back of my neck, and retraces. Birds fly off the fence. Squirrels flee up the uneven bark of trees.
“Done,” she says, patting my shoulder. I thank her.
I run a hand through my nearly naked scalp, and tiny pieces of hair sprinkle across my hand. I jerk my hand to the floor, but most of the hair doesn’t budge. It’s stuck. My mother’s reflection appears on the television, but then vanishes as the screen cuts to commercial.
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Photo: GettyImages
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