Hair Piece

I got my hair cut yesterday. I really needed it, as I had neglected my locks (and a lot of other things) during a deluge of work over the past two months. My previous haircut hadn't been a good one -- the barber had left it too "full" on top -- so I was starting to look like a disheveled sheepdog or a 1970s relic.

As usual, I went to the unisex place at the mall to get it done. I was hoping that Jerry, the only male haircutter there and the one who usually gives me the best haircut, would be around. But it was his day off. I ended up with a new person, "Marlena" (I think that was her name), a tall, middle-aged blonde who spoke only a few words of English. With much gesturing and pointing, I managed to convey what I wanted done to my head.

Now I don't have a complicated hairstyle. It’s one that’s worn by a high percentage of men around the world. So I figured that if Marlena had any skill at all, I would get at least an adequate trim.

It's always disconcerting to have a stranger groping your head and using scissors near your eyes, and Marlena seemed hesitant. I got the impression that she hadn't worked on a lot of men before.

However, this isn't a horror story. Marlena did, in fact, give me a decent haircut, though she took her sweet time about it. She seemed to have a problem with the nape of my neck, though, and I ended up with a hairline back there that's a little too . . . abbreviated. "It will grow back," my wife assures me.

When she was finally done, I asked Marlena where she was from. She understood my question--I'm sure she gets asked that all the time--and said "Cuba." That’s interesting, I thought. There is no official immigration to this country from Cuba, and I couldn't imagine her, with her elaborate tresses and dignified manner, landing in Florida via some leaky tub. I said something banal, like "it would be nice to visit Cuba someday," and her face lit up. She said something in broken English about how "beautiful, beautiful" Cuba is and how many tourists it has from every country (except the US). I nodded, still curious about how she ended up at a clip joint in a Jersey City shopping mall. I decided not to ask, as I wasn't sure she would understand the question, and I suspected it might not be something she would want to talk about. I gave her a nice tip.

I keep wondering what it must be like to move to a country where you don’t know the language and have to touch strange men's heads all day. I think about that as I finger the bald place on the back of my neck. Maybe this is how men wear their hair in Cuba.