Dyed but not Dead, or Losing your Hair and Gaining Your Soul
Last week, I went to Connecticut for a thing. It was a small thing but a thing nonetheless. A thing where I had to stand behind a table and talk to curious High School Students and their parents about their future kind of thing. Not a big thing. But a thing. A thing that I enjoy doing, to some extent. And it was a thing in Connecticut, kind of far from the things I usually do and the places where I usually spend my time- the New York Metro Area.
So the day before the thing in Connecticut, I was in Midtown Manhattan (part of the New York metro area) and I had some time to kill before catching a train in Penn Station and so I decided, on the eve of the thing in Connecticut, that I would go somewhere to get a haircut. I was going to Connecticut, damn it, and I wanted to look nice.
I googled “barber shops near me” and found one about five blocks from where I was. I set about on foot to the location. I arrived, walked up a flight of stairs and was greeted by two people- a man and a woman-who spoke in what I assumed to be a Russian accent.
“You here for cut?” the woman said to me, as the man swept the floor.
“Yes. I’m here for cut.”
“Put your things there,” she motioned to a row of padded seating near a window that overlooked Broadway and about 38th avenue. “Have seat.”
I did.
“What kind of thing you want?”
“A trim. Short on the sides. Long on the top. I’ve got to hide this bald spot.”
She looked.
“Yes. Yes. I see. Bald spot. Bird poop target, no?” She said as she let out a little laugh.
I shifted in my chair uneasily.
“Yes. Bird poop target,” I said, my pride traveling down my esophagus and settling into my relatively empty stomach.
Snip Snip. Snip Snip.
Causal conversation. Snip Snip.
“What you do? Where you from?”
Buzz. Buzz. Snip. Snip. Buzz. Snip. Snip. Buzz. Voila.
When she was finished, she brought out the mirror. What I saw in that mirror did not shock me but it did frighten me, for the bald spot on my head seemed to have grown EVEN more since the last time I got a cut.
“How was this possible?” I thought to myself. “How did it seem to be growing EVEN bigger since last time? Am I stressed? Do I wear too many hats? Is this just how it usually happens for everyone but I’m freaking out about it because it’s me? Is it all the Taco Bell I’ve been eating lately? I have been eating a little more Taco Bell lately. That can’t be good for me. It’s not. I know it’s not good for me. It’s horrible for me. The meat is so processed some people consider it to be vegan. But they’ve opened one close to my house and I’ve been going more lately. Yes I have. In fact, I think they just opened one near Penn Station. Should I go there before I catch the train? No. I shouldn’t do that. I defintely should not do that. It’s bad for me and it’s causing my bald spot to grow.
My bald spot.
My dreaded bald spot.
A sign of age and mortality and my lost youth.
There it was, shining in the bright lights of the salon in Midtown in that mirror, like a spotlight beaming upward for a Broadway premiere.
I let out a tiny gasp.
“Is there something…It’s just so…Is there something I can do about this?” I asked her.
“You want to hide this more?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“Go to Ricky’s next door. Ask for spray. Use spray. Try it first before you purchase.”
“Spray? At Ricky’s? Try it before I purchase.”
“Yes.”
I paid. I left. I went to Ricky’s. I got the spray and I tried it. Right there in the store I did.
First I tried the Light Brown:
That’s not gonna work. Did they have anything darker? I’ll go for the Jet Black.
I went to the new Taco Bell Cantina in Midtown, head uncovered and full of Jet Black Spray, then I caught my train to Jersey from Penn Station.
The next morning, I woke up, put on my clothes, then went to the bathroom at my sister’s place to apply the spray.
Shake Shake Shake. Spshhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Shake Shake Shake. Spshhhhhhhhhhhh. Spshhhhh. Spshh. Spsh. There. That’s good:
I got in the car and drove to the thing in Connecticut. It was cold, so I turned up the heat. I turned the music up loud and danced in the driver’s seat of that car. I had hair again, god damn it, or at least the illusion of it, and I was feeling my old self again.
When I got to the High School in Connecticut for the thing, I was twenty minutes late. I had hit some traffic outside the City and it slowed me down. I rushed into the doors of the High School and asked the first person I saw where the Cafeteria was so I could go and set up my table. They told me, but I couldn’t help noticing some sort of…attitude in their voice. I saw another person and I asked them another question about what I was supposed to do. More attitude.
“This was fucking bullshit,” I thought. “Of course. These stuck up WASPY assholes in Connecticut are going to be like this. I am just asking questions, you don’t have to treat me like I have something stuck to my f-cking face.” I thought, feeling especially emboldened because I had hair again.
I texted my friend: “I. Can’t. Stand. WASPS.”
He texted back: “Lol. Just make your money.”
I set up my table and went to the bathroom. What I saw in that bathroom mirror both shocked me and horrified me. For I had bold, black streaks cascading down the side of my punim (that’s Yiddish for “face”). It was the spray, of course. The heat of the car had mixed with my sweat and now I looked like I had just come off a full days work on an oil rig. These Connecticut people weren’t treating me LIKE I had something on my face. I DID have something on my face. It was the spray. The Jet Black Spray from Ricky’s in Midtown (which is part of the New York Metro area, where I spend most of my time).
As I wiped the gunk off the sides of my face I swallowed. I felt my pride travel down my esophagus and settle into the pit of my relatively empty stomach.
I returned to the High School Cafeteria for the thing.
I spoke to some parents and their children. All of them pretty pleasant and beaming with the unrealized hopes and endless potential of seventeen. I enjoyed being around that and thought perhaps that my youth wasn’t necessarily lost but maybe more formed by the myriad experiences of this life- the triumphs, the disappointments, the humiliations.
When I got back to Brooklyn the next day, I gave myself a buzzcut and resolved to eat a little less Taco Bell.
