Just a little off the top...

“What the hell happened to his head???”

This is me, screaming, after H returns with Little Man from, yet another, trip to the Supercuts.  It seems their version of a boy’s haircut involves sticking his head in a pencil sharpener.

“It’s your fault”, H protests, “If you would just take him to the damn barber already, we could stop having this argument every six weeks.”

Every six weeks.  While I have thoroughly enjoyed the daily no-maintenance aspect of male hair care for the under-ten set, the frequency of my son’s trips to a hair professional of some sort rivals my own. Once Little Man was old enough for his first haircut, H insisted the town barber shop was the way to go.  But one walk by, and I knew the seventy year-old Italian who runs the joint was going to have little patience for a squirmy two year-old.  So we were off to my salon where the gals had seen him go from source of nausea, to baby bump, to toddler with a mullet, and they would be as invested in his looking good, and not crying while getting there, as I was.

His first haircut was an ordeal, as expected.  Both of us covered in a drape,  he sat in my lap, crying at the trimmer, wiggling so that, eventually, the rest of the cut had to take place with his facing me and me holding his head between my hands.  Sam, my hairdresser, was so sweet and patient with him, as we chatted about celebrity gossip over the crying. I doubt I would’ve been so comfortable with the barber, Little John, across the street, who probably would’ve been enraged by my soft parenting, eventually screaming at LM, “SHUTUPA YOU FACE!”  After a few haircuts, LM eventually figured out the whole sitting still thing and that after the haircut waits a whole table of baked treats, and pretty women to cluck over how handsome you are, and got with the program.

We would’ve sailed along nicely if H hadn’t stuck his nose in my business.  Indulgent as he is about the amount I spend on my hair, he, and OK, I, could not see adding to that amount with a pre-schooler’s ‘do.  Also, I felt like LM’s personal grooming was something he should be having more of a hand in, since shaving and other things I know nothing about are coming down the pike.  But still, the barber was not working out for us because the place is PACKED on the weekends, the only time H can take him.  And they don’t take appointments!  What is up with that?  Giving men yet another excuse, along with mowing the lawn, for getting out of the house for long periods of time.* All of LM’s sitting-and-being-quite time would be eaten up sitting on those ancient red leather chairs I see in the windows, rifling through old issues of Golf Digest.  Hence, the Supercuts.

Then I made the appointment for the holiday picture.  I could not bear the thought of future ribbing at the Christmas Eve table, as LM’s future wife looks through our old photos and, seeing this year’s, asks me, “How could you have done that to his hair????”.  It was time to make friends with Little John and his band of merry WOPs this Thursday.**

We walked in at ten o’clock this morning.  I figured, by then, the guys trying to get a cut in before work would be gone and all the old guys would all be done, and save for one guy getting his head shaved, the place was empty.  It took a minute for anyone to acknowledge us, since they were all busy reading the New York Post, so I got to really enjoy the faded pages ripped out or hair magazines and taped to the faux-marble formica that covers eighty percent of the walls and counters.  If I were looking for feathered layers for LM I’d have many examples to point to. Where is the receptionist who knows me by name to take our coats?  We were unceremoniously waved over to a chair, thankfully, belonging to the youngest of the staff, since I was still worried about behavior-related confrontations. 

“What we gonna do, bella?”  OK, mild flirting from Italian men is a soft spot of mine, especially if they are old.  I had learned enough back at my salon to know the trimmer level they use on LM, but had to explain that the top gets scissor-cut to deal with his massive cowlick.  This is half the reason LM’s haircuts are so difficult.  True to the meaning of the word, it looks like a cow licked him right up his face.  His hair, left unattended, tends toward a Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary sort of look.  So, Nick, our barber, whips out scissors and comb and starts combing in an upward motion and snipping at lightning speed.  I am instantly terrified.  There is no slow and careful snipping.  No checking in with me about how I think the length is, just hair flying everywhere.  Little Man, himself surprised, starts to lean away from the scissors, causing Nick to simply rotate to the other side of his head to force him back the other way.  I can’t look.

So instead, I look around me.  Where the walls aren't covered in aforementioned formica, they are covered in oak paneling.  The barbers have old school, red leather chairs with the adjustable headrests.  Little Man is even sitting on a coordinating red leather booster.  Each barber has his name over his station on faux-wood plaque, with family photos taped up around their mirrors and old copies of Il Messagero on their countertops.  The two men who came in after us chat comfortably with Nick, Joe and Little John about town politics, the lottery and the weather and if they don't want to talk, they flip through the paper.  Joe puts a hot towel on one gentleman's neck before shaving him with a straight razor. There is a clubby relaxed energy, or lack there of here that is distinctly male.  I'm sort of falling in love with this little place.  It is what it is and if you don't like then, vaffanculo!*** 

Then, with a quick swish of that fluffy white brush covered in talcum powder, all the hair bits are whisked off LM’s neck, a quick smack of some pomade, and there was my little boy, looking clean and handsome.  Maybe Nick put a little too much product in his hair and his cowlick stood a little too straight-up giving him a distinct Pauly D vibe, but it was better than him looking like a #2 Ticonderoga.  For the bargain price of fifteen dollars, Little Man had a fresh cut and was even offered a lollipop out of the little basket by the cash register (that had actual buttons) and I had a new appreciation for this male enclave.  

I used to tease H when he came home smiling after his visits to this shop, wondering what all the fuss was about.  Now I know, just like when I go to the salon, I can turn into a female stereotype, chatting about intimate things with women I have nothing in common except we both have tin foil on our heads, while reading Us Weekly, and H gets to go to the barber shop, hang out and be a guy.  There's nothing wrong with my son experiencing that too.  And I love how unpretentious this place is that provides that experience.  All these hip, "old school" barber shops that are opening, offering hot razor shaves and all that jazz?  These guys are all, "What, who's not doing that?", proving not everything in the world needs to be fancy to be good.

So farewell, Supercuts, you have hirsutically assaulted my child for the last time.  I leave him in the capable hands of an Italian sporting a mullet.

*Do I make being home sound like prison?  I don’t mean to, it’s actually an insane asylum.

**I reserve the right to use both Irish and Italian ethnic slurs. Deal.

***"Fuck you!"