6.10.06
ST: LN 10 Daddy pays the bill
It was a warm spring evening as I headed up the stairs to the hotel doors. I always wished that the hotel had a doorman - one of those men in a green coat and silver buttons, who would open the door for me and tip his hat. Just call me old fashioned. As it was, I opened the large door just in time to allow a couple of guests to plough their way through.
He was obviously the country bigwig, in the city for maybe the second time in his life. His wife seemed timid and scared, and had that nutbrown skin you see on video clips when they show a woman standing outside hanging washing and looking off into the distance in a 'life is miserable but I've come to accept my place by my husband's side for the sake of the children' sort of way.
He obviously mistook me for the doorman, because he asked the way to the University campus. Rather than prolong the encounter, I simply gave him directions. He looked grateful, and his wife smiled to show that even though he would forget the instructions and have them walking around in circles for over an hour, she had memorised them and at the appropriate time she would guide him subtly around the right corner, where he could proclaim that I had given him the wrong directions in the first place. Such is life.
Joe was already behind the front desk, as I went over to relieve my father at the shop. There was the usual banter between a father and his son who inhabit the same world but live in entirely different Universes.
"Hi, Dad. What's up?"
"Not much. Been a slow day. You know. Nothing ever happens in a shop like this. It must be really boring for you here every night. Don't you ever want to go out and party? Maybe meet the right girl?"
"Look, Dad,..." Well, you know how it goes. A bit of this, a bit of that, and we finish the conversation without having listened to, or communicated with, each other. I settled down to get on with some study, and thought how nice it would be sometimes to work in a quiet boring Barber shop. I don't know whether it was karma that attracted these adventures to me, or just some angry God, but my shift at the chair never seemed to be anything but - unusual.
Speak of the Devil.
After an hour or so of study and a couple of trims and a shave, the country couple returned, dragging a lamb behind them. Okay, he wasn't a lamb. He was struggling and whining and complaining that his father was bruising him and that his mother should make his father stop, but his hair was surf and sun bleached, and was so long and ratty that it must have been done on purpose, as no sane male would ever let his hair get into that state accidentally.
They made a bee-line for my shop (of course) and I vowed to go to every church to placate whichever God it was that I had offended in order to be cursed with an interesting life. The father dumped what I took to be his son on one of the chairs near the door, and then turned to his wife.
"Now, mother, you just go upstairs and wait in the room, while I deal with this son of yours." She looked at her angry husband and cowed son, and realised that discretion was the better part of survival, and with handkerchief to her mouth, she moved off to the elevator.
"Look what you've done to your mother, you ungrateful boy. This would never have happened if you were still at home." The boy looked up at his father through bangs that could best be described as rope-like. He started to respond with the usual arguments - he was now 18, he had his own life to live, he was an adult, it was fashionable, his father was old-fashioned - but his father wasn't in the mood to listen. He just grabbed his son by the dreadlocks and pulled him over to the Barber chair. Realising that I was losing control of the situation (not that I ever had it) I carefully cleared my throat.
"What? Oh, sorry, but can you believe what my son has done to his hair?" The father stopped in mid-tirade. I think he saw me for the first time, and tried to place my face. He was about to ask if I wasn't the doorman, when he realised that either I was the doorman masquerading as a Barber, or he had made a mistake, so he let it drop.
"Look at the state of his hair. I want it all cut off. All of it." Junior started to get out of the chair at this point, ready to make a run for it. I had this image of the boy being tackled by his father halfway across the lobby floor, and I wasn't sure if it was funny or insane. However, the father was quick to lay down some facts for his son - that he was the one that was paying the bills, who owned the car, was in fact subsidising his son's 'depraved and disgusting' lifestyle. The son flopped back in the chair, willing to suffer whatever indignity while plotting his revenge against his father and all authority figures the world over.
"I'm going to have to cut some of the more tangled bits out first," I explained. "Then we'll see how long we can leave it and still have it look alright." I thought I had suggested a simple compromise, but the father was having none of it.
"I want it all off," says the father. "If he won't take care of it, he shouldn't be allowed to have it."
The son, in a bout of inverted reverse psychology and wounded pride said, "Sure take it all off. Then I can look like a real Nazi. Just like my dear father."
This was enough to set Dad off again, and before I could interfere, he picked up the clippers I had set out near the chair, and set too on his son's head. It turns out he had been a sheep shearer in his youth, and I watched amazed as he cut huge swathes through the boy's tangled hair. He was also used to having a struggling client, because at one stage he managed to place his knee where it immobilised the boy, and the headlock he used on the boy I was sure had been banned by the World Wrestling Association.
I just stood back and watched.
With a few really good passes, the father had trimmed his son's hair down to a decent crew cut. But by this time, he was really getting into it, and he called me across to explain how he could make the clippers go shorter. I took the guard off, and then he proceeded to finish the job.
At the end, the kid wasn't bald, but there was definitely more skin than hair. With the anger out of his system, the father actually became more affectionate, and a bit embarrassed. He gently rubbed his hand across his son's bare scalp, and smiled. The son, too, seemed to see the absurdity of it all. They started making jokes that only someone raised on a farm could truly understand.
The father turned to me and sheepishly returned the clippers. He was quite apologetic, and insisted on paying the regular fee.
"C'mon, son, let's go up and show you're mother how respectable you look."
"You don't think she'll be upset?"
"She'll probably be pissed off at me for awhile, but she'll get over it. She always does. C'mon, let's go."
I started to sweep up the remains of the shearing, and I glanced up to see Joe shaking his head in amazement. As if this sort of thing wasn't getting to be a common practice in the Late Night Hotel Barber Shop. Maybe I won't get the curse removed. There's something to be said for an interesting life.
He was obviously the country bigwig, in the city for maybe the second time in his life. His wife seemed timid and scared, and had that nutbrown skin you see on video clips when they show a woman standing outside hanging washing and looking off into the distance in a 'life is miserable but I've come to accept my place by my husband's side for the sake of the children' sort of way.
He obviously mistook me for the doorman, because he asked the way to the University campus. Rather than prolong the encounter, I simply gave him directions. He looked grateful, and his wife smiled to show that even though he would forget the instructions and have them walking around in circles for over an hour, she had memorised them and at the appropriate time she would guide him subtly around the right corner, where he could proclaim that I had given him the wrong directions in the first place. Such is life.
Joe was already behind the front desk, as I went over to relieve my father at the shop. There was the usual banter between a father and his son who inhabit the same world but live in entirely different Universes.
"Hi, Dad. What's up?"
"Not much. Been a slow day. You know. Nothing ever happens in a shop like this. It must be really boring for you here every night. Don't you ever want to go out and party? Maybe meet the right girl?"
"Look, Dad,..." Well, you know how it goes. A bit of this, a bit of that, and we finish the conversation without having listened to, or communicated with, each other. I settled down to get on with some study, and thought how nice it would be sometimes to work in a quiet boring Barber shop. I don't know whether it was karma that attracted these adventures to me, or just some angry God, but my shift at the chair never seemed to be anything but - unusual.
Speak of the Devil.
After an hour or so of study and a couple of trims and a shave, the country couple returned, dragging a lamb behind them. Okay, he wasn't a lamb. He was struggling and whining and complaining that his father was bruising him and that his mother should make his father stop, but his hair was surf and sun bleached, and was so long and ratty that it must have been done on purpose, as no sane male would ever let his hair get into that state accidentally.
They made a bee-line for my shop (of course) and I vowed to go to every church to placate whichever God it was that I had offended in order to be cursed with an interesting life. The father dumped what I took to be his son on one of the chairs near the door, and then turned to his wife.
"Now, mother, you just go upstairs and wait in the room, while I deal with this son of yours." She looked at her angry husband and cowed son, and realised that discretion was the better part of survival, and with handkerchief to her mouth, she moved off to the elevator.
"Look what you've done to your mother, you ungrateful boy. This would never have happened if you were still at home." The boy looked up at his father through bangs that could best be described as rope-like. He started to respond with the usual arguments - he was now 18, he had his own life to live, he was an adult, it was fashionable, his father was old-fashioned - but his father wasn't in the mood to listen. He just grabbed his son by the dreadlocks and pulled him over to the Barber chair. Realising that I was losing control of the situation (not that I ever had it) I carefully cleared my throat.
"What? Oh, sorry, but can you believe what my son has done to his hair?" The father stopped in mid-tirade. I think he saw me for the first time, and tried to place my face. He was about to ask if I wasn't the doorman, when he realised that either I was the doorman masquerading as a Barber, or he had made a mistake, so he let it drop.
"Look at the state of his hair. I want it all cut off. All of it." Junior started to get out of the chair at this point, ready to make a run for it. I had this image of the boy being tackled by his father halfway across the lobby floor, and I wasn't sure if it was funny or insane. However, the father was quick to lay down some facts for his son - that he was the one that was paying the bills, who owned the car, was in fact subsidising his son's 'depraved and disgusting' lifestyle. The son flopped back in the chair, willing to suffer whatever indignity while plotting his revenge against his father and all authority figures the world over.
"I'm going to have to cut some of the more tangled bits out first," I explained. "Then we'll see how long we can leave it and still have it look alright." I thought I had suggested a simple compromise, but the father was having none of it.
"I want it all off," says the father. "If he won't take care of it, he shouldn't be allowed to have it."
The son, in a bout of inverted reverse psychology and wounded pride said, "Sure take it all off. Then I can look like a real Nazi. Just like my dear father."
This was enough to set Dad off again, and before I could interfere, he picked up the clippers I had set out near the chair, and set too on his son's head. It turns out he had been a sheep shearer in his youth, and I watched amazed as he cut huge swathes through the boy's tangled hair. He was also used to having a struggling client, because at one stage he managed to place his knee where it immobilised the boy, and the headlock he used on the boy I was sure had been banned by the World Wrestling Association.
I just stood back and watched.
With a few really good passes, the father had trimmed his son's hair down to a decent crew cut. But by this time, he was really getting into it, and he called me across to explain how he could make the clippers go shorter. I took the guard off, and then he proceeded to finish the job.
At the end, the kid wasn't bald, but there was definitely more skin than hair. With the anger out of his system, the father actually became more affectionate, and a bit embarrassed. He gently rubbed his hand across his son's bare scalp, and smiled. The son, too, seemed to see the absurdity of it all. They started making jokes that only someone raised on a farm could truly understand.
The father turned to me and sheepishly returned the clippers. He was quite apologetic, and insisted on paying the regular fee.
"C'mon, son, let's go up and show you're mother how respectable you look."
"You don't think she'll be upset?"
"She'll probably be pissed off at me for awhile, but she'll get over it. She always does. C'mon, let's go."
I started to sweep up the remains of the shearing, and I glanced up to see Joe shaking his head in amazement. As if this sort of thing wasn't getting to be a common practice in the Late Night Hotel Barber Shop. Maybe I won't get the curse removed. There's something to be said for an interesting life.
Labels: LNHB
# posted @ 12:10 pm 
