the cut

 

The barber has finished with his last client, a ruddy Harvard lad. 

 

“Who’s next, please?” 

 

It’s my turn. I drop the magazine I’m not reading, a six month old Sports Illustrated, onto the table. 

 

When he sees it’s me, the barber smiles. “Good afternoon, Sir,” he says, his hand beckons me to sit. His eyes are kind.

 

Over the years of our acquaintance, we’ve developed a comfortable repertoire, a familiar dance. For the next fifteen minutes or so, I am safe.

 

“How are you today, my friend? Long time, yes?”

 

“I’m ok,” I say, my voice too loud in the brightly lit space. “I’m ok.” If I keep saying it, maybe I’ll come to believe it. I settle into the chair, my hands grasp the armrests, my toe taps the metal of the footrest to test the realness of it, the hardness of it. He cheerfully lays the drape over me, snaps the collar snug around my neck. Around us, the hum of everyday life of NPR droning about the death toll in Sumatra, an earthquake in Chile. No one listens as the men sit, waiting, they riff through newpaspers, read the latest scores, while underneath the ordinary, something pulses, something that waits for me. Again my toe finds the hard metal edge. I look down at my battle scarred boots, the old black Doc Martens, my warrior gear from the ACTUP days when every day was a march or another protest. When I was young. Invincible. When I had the fight in me. A single red sumac leaf still sticks to the cracked leather from my walk over, my heavy feet feel the cold dampness of the long, wet day. 

 

“The usual, today?” he asks. 

 

“Cut it all off.”

 

He looks at me, “Yes?”

 

“Yes. Cut it.”

 

Without much ado, the clippers buzz over my scalp, the vibration gets into my skull. I watch my hair accumulate on the floor, a snowfall of hair. Rain pelts the plate glass window. Outside, people rush by under umbrellas, buses and cars rush along in endless traffic.  A chill settles into my deep gut, nettling anxiety, a shapeless fear that begins to take shape, threatens to show itself with the creeping in of night. If I close my eyes, I might be lost in it, sucked into the yawning darkness. 

 

The barber works quickly, efficiently. He does not notice my discomfort.  All I need to do is sit here, still, let him do his work. All I need to do is breathe. The nearness of him. The physicality of his body.  The smell of a man. My hands again grasp, hold on tightly, as if I don’t trust gravity to hold me in place, as if whatever tethering cord that has kept me bound has gently slipped its knot, at any moment to cast me adrift.  I breathe in the scent of him. I breathe in hair oil and talc, Wrigley’s gum, winter green.  Soon, the scissors snip. His gentle hands move briskly around my head. 

 

In the next chair, another Harvard kid get his hair cut. He isn’t wearing socks, his naked ankles insolent against the cold. The hubris of youth, and vigorous health. He looks straight ahead, past his own handsome reflection, straight out to an untroubled future that he will greet with confident assurance. 

 

            “Evening comes so early these days,” I say, too loud. “I hate this time of year.”

“Yes,” the barber says. 

“It’s hard to believe the new year will be here. Just a few weeks.”

“A whole new time,” he nods. “The Year 2000,” he says, drawing out the words in a comical baritone, “Y-2-K.” 

             His thumb lingers on my cervical vertebra as he deftly, gently strokes a quick razor over my nape. Skin tingles. The air unexpectedly chill. His touch enters me, my bereft flesh responds, craves. Cowers. The moment passes. Again, briefly, his eye in the mirror is kind. I look away. It has been so long since I have been touched. 

            

But that’s not true. 

Not even an hour ago, the nurse practitioner at the clinic tenderly palpated my lymph nodes, tapped on my chest and abdomen. She talked in a smooth voice about downward drifting T cells. She said that I was lucky to be diagnosed now, that new med cocktails show terrific promise. Though her eyes sought mine I would not look at her, or the little red ribbon pinned to her trim white jacket, so I lay on the hard flat table, not looking at anything. She talked hopefully, but I didn’t hear her. I know how this goes. I’ve seen it enough times. What waits for me I have already lived through so many times it’s like reading the rosary by rote, a litany of prayers that go unheard. She can’t understand what numbness comes over you, something infinitely worse than sadness, worse than simple grief, when you just shut down to get through. I know how it goes. It ends with a handful of ashes tossed to the wind. No heaven. Just nothing.  She says I am lucky. Too late. Too late for the one person who mattered, who might have helped me through this. What does it get me, all this luck? What do I have without him? I’m the widower, the survivor left to navigate the night sky alone without my guiding star. It’s too late for too many not as fortune favored. Now it’s my turn. But she says I am lucky. She doesn’t know.  

The darkness opens up. I careen too close to the edge, feel myself falling. 

That drifting sensation jolts me in the chair, I pull back with a jump, just as he lifts my skin taut across my cheek, the straight steel blade cold against my skin, nicks my flesh, cuts into me, I disintegrate with a silver shattering sensation, not pain, but shock and deep, quick fear. 

A drop of blood, my blood, glittering ruby red in the too dazzling whiteness of the light. 

I’m not OK. I want to yell out. 

I want to scream.

I want to warn him, but I am at the bottom of the depth. 

He does not see my shame. He is patient, kind, unworried, wipes away my sin with a simple cotton ball, a swipe of softness. And it’s over. His tenderness more than I can bear. 

. “OK?” says my barber.

I look at myself. Buzzed cut clean. I run my hand over my scalp. It feels soft. Velvety smooth.

“Good?” he smiles.

 

“Good.” I nod, smile back, a tiny twitch of my upper lip. For a moment our eyes meet.

He brushes me down with soft bristles, shoos away pesky hairs off my sweater. He sweeps up the pile of dead hair to make ready for the next customer. At the register I pay and hand him his tip, he thanks me and holds something out to me, a lollipop, red cherry, the kind they give to little boys after their first haircut.

 

“See you next time?” he says.

“Yes,” I say. “Next time.”

 

Outside I bundle up, zip up.  Mass Ave is loud with traffic. Buses rush by, cabs and cars and bikes all jam the street. The rain has stopped, the clearing sky purple smudged. I trudge through wet leaves cluttering the sidewalk. Through my banged up boots the cold seeps in. A corner coffee shop thrums alive with people inside warming up over steaming mugs of tea. There are scones and cakes on delicate blue plates, crumbs on checkered tablecloths. Laughter and holiday music escapes out whenever the door is opened.  In the window, my reflection catches me: the lollipop in my mouth, my silvery cropped cut, the haunted face that looks back at me. The fear of the coming darkness remains. What would happen if I just let go?  What if I slipped into the depths of the lone and starless sky? Who would scatter what’s left of me to the wind? The thought taunts, especially when the pale day fades so early, when I remember him, and in remembering, trace only the outline, mapping the territory of what is lost.

 

But tomorrow will come, same as always. 

Maybe then I’ll think that I’m the lucky one.