Me and My Barber: Reconnecting with Kristen

Me and My Barber: Reconnecting with Kristin

After several rings, my call to the River City Cutters connected me with an answering machine. I had no interest in leaving a message, so I called back 20 minutes later. This time a live person answered. A woman’s voice. I hoped it was Kristin.

“Hello. River City Cutters. How can I help you?” she began.

“Good morning. Is this Kristin?” I asked hopefully.

“That’s me,” she replied. It was the same pleasant voice I remembered, unchanged over the years.

“I just wanted to know if you were in.”

“I’m in the middle of a color right now.”

“Will you be done in 15 or 20 minutes?”

“Half an hour would be better, honey.”

“That’s fine. See you then.” It was set. We had a date, an appointment.

That’s how it started, or, more precisely, that was how we restarted our relationship.

For a couple of months six long years ago Kristin had been my barber. Then she disappeared without a trace. I’d been trying to find her ever since.

My first encounter with Kristin was a lucky coincidence. I’d been searching for a new barber in a different location. I was dissatisfied with Sherry, my previous barber. The haircuts she gave me were all right, I suppose, but nothing special. She had her own idea of the look that best suited a professional man of fifty-five. The length she administered was never short enough to satisfy me. I needed a fresh start with another barber.

It was a Sunday. I was driving through an unfamiliar suburban neighborhood ten miles from my home. I was on the lookout for a new barber shop among the fast-food joints, nail salons, and auto repair shops. Then I spotted a promising looking building set back from the highway. I made a quick U-turn and drove past a second time, checking it out more closely. It was a traditional men’s barbershop—nothing fancy—the kind of place I prefer. I was overdue for a haircut and decided to give it a try, a decision I never regretted.

The next morning, I looked up the shop’s number and called. I wasn’t expecting anyone to answer because most shops are closed on Mondays, but woman answered. “Just checking to see if you’re open,” I explained.

“Yeah, we’re open. Come on over.”

It was an invitation I couldn’t refuse.

Twenty-five minutes later, I walked through the door of the Heritage Barber Shop. An elderly barber, obviously the proprietor, was busy clipping a customer of nearly the same age. He looked me over and informed me, “Kristin will be out in a minute.”

That was welcome news because I insist on having my hair cut by a woman. It had been nearly ten years since I let a male barber give me a haircut. Only a woman could provide the thrill I was seeking. I would have turned around and walked out the door rather than allow the old guy to cut my hair.

I took a seat in the waiting area. It wasn’t long before a dark-haired woman wearing a Red Sox cap walked out of the back. “Come up to my chair,” she invited, and I willingly complied.

She was thirty-five, maybe forty, no longer young, but nice looking with a pleasant speaking voice. “I’m Kristin,” she said.
“Pleased to meet you, Kristin,” I answered. “I’m Pete.”

She wrapped a white tissue around my neck and spread a red-striped cape over my shoulders, snapping it tight in the back. “So, what are we doing today, Pete?” The standard opening line for hundreds of barber shop haircuts.

I was prepared. I’d been rehearsing my instructions as I drove there. “Short on the back and sides; use a number two guide,” I told her. “Short on top too, short enough so it stands up.”

“Sounds like a flat top. Is that what you want?”

She’d said the magic words, the words I’d been afraid to speak. I gave her the okay and for the next twenty-five minutes I was in haircut heaven.

I emerged from the Heritage Barber Shop with a sharp looking flat top. It was a major departure from my previous traditional businessman’s cut. My wife didn’t much like my new look, but I loved it.

Kristin became my barber of choice that day. She gave me the best haircut I had ever experienced. She had perfected the difficult flattop cut, the style I had secretly desired since my teenage years, but never had the courage to request. That evening, as I admired my new look in front of my bathroom mirror, I resolved that from now on she would be my permanent barber. If you accused me of being infatuated with Kristen, you would have been correct.

Four weeks later, my second haircut with Kristin was every bit as excellent as the first. But when I called to make an appointment for my third haircut, the proprietor, the elderly Italian barber I met on my first visit, told me, “She don’t work here no more.” My heart sank. I pressed him for more details, hoping I might continue seeing her at another local shop, but he claimed he had no idea where she had gone. I suspected he was lying in an attempt to retain me as a customer, but I never returned to the Heritage barbershop.

My initial encounter initial with Kristen was an unexpected stroke of good fortune. During that first haircut said she worked at the Heritage shop only one day a week. She worked full-time at a shop in a nearby city. She drove to the Heritage shop on Mondays when her other shop was closed. I had no idea where this other shop was located.

I was frantic. I knew Kristin lived thirty miles away and made the sixty-mile round trip every Monday. I knew her first and last name, but nothing else.

I searched online for weeks. Eventually I found her home address and enough personal data to confirm that I’d located the right person. However, her place of employment was not included among the available information. I discovered her phone number, but never got up the nerve to call. I didn’t want to give the impression I was stalker although that’s I was.

Could Kristen have given up barbering to pursue a more lucrative profession? That thought crossed my mind. I fervently prayed this was not the case. That would have been a tragic waste of her remarkable talent.

From time to time over the subsequent years I checked Kristin’s status online; each time I was unable to discover where she worked. In the meantime, I found other barbers who gave me satisfactory haircuts, but none could compare with Kristin’s superior cuts. The memory of my two perfect flat tops kept me searching, hoping that one day I might find her again.

Then, four weeks ago, while I was doodling around on Facebook, I had the inspiration to once again look for Kristin. This time I would check out Facebook. It only took a few minutes to locate her Facebook page. Somehow, I had overlooked it on my previous searches. I quickly learned that she worked at the River City Cutters on Bridge Street in Springfield, thirty miles distant.

I was overjoyed. I found her at last, and she still was a barber!

My next step was visiting the website for the River City Cutters. I perused the reviews posted by customers and read testimonials from dozens of satisfied patrons, all raving about the wonderful haircuts Kristin delivered. There could be no doubt this was the same barber who had given me my perfect flattops six years ago.

Almost immediately, I began planning a trip to her shop for my next haircut. Unfortunately, I had visited another barber just two days earlier. I had to wait another four weeks.

I checked my calendar for a date when my wife would be out of town. She tolerates my obsession with short haircuts, but if she discovered I was driving thirty miles to get my hair cut she might suspect something kinky was going on.

The days passed slowly. It took forever until August 2 rolled around. I dropped my wife at the airport at 5:00 AM for her early flight, then went back home to catch a couple more hours of sleep. I woke a second time at 8:30, gulped down a bowl of cereal, and left the house a little after 9:00. I called the number for the River City Cutters from a highway rest stop four miles from the Springfield exit. That’s when she told me I’d have to wait for half an hour. Fortunately, there was a Dunkin Donut shop at that exit. I purchased a Boston Crème and a cup of coffee which I nursed for twenty-five agonizingly slow minutes until it was time to depart for my reunion with Kristin.

I found the River City shop in an older section of town not far from the river. The two-story frame building was surrounded by vacant lots. It looked like there once had been many more structures in the vicinity. I concluded this must be an urban renewal area. It definitely was a low-rent district. I slowly drove past the shop just to scope it out. The building was sandwiched between two other modest businesses, neither of which was open. The shop’s exterior was shabby, definitely several levels below the neat and clean Heritage shop where she used to work. But I’ve learned that a shop’s outward appearance bears no relationship to the quality of barbering that takes place inside. I’ve had too many lousy haircuts in fancy-looking shops. Besides, I had a powerful incentive to proceed—Kristin was working inside.

I spotted Kristin sitting on a bench outside the shop. Her dark brown hair was pulled through the back of a faded Red Sox cap, just as it was when we first we met, six years ago. She was smoking a cigarette and chatting on her cell phone. I paused in front of the entrance. She glanced up and asked, “You the one that called a while ago?” she asked.

“That was me,” I acknowledged. She waved me inside, indicating she’d follow when she was done on the phone.

I took a seat beneath the front window and looked around. It was a small two-chair shop. An older woman wrapped in a black and white cape occupied the second chair. Her head was swathed in tinfoil—Kristin’s customer having her hair colored. The second chair was empty.

A husky younger guy came out from the back. He had to be Jason, the other River City barber. “I’m waiting for Kristin,” I told him before he had a chance to speak, and he retreated back into his den.

My barber entered two minutes later. She removed the cape from her customer who got up and retreated to a seat along the side wall.

“She’s still gotta cook for a while,” Kristin explained as she ushered me into her chair.

She swirled the cape around my shoulders and fastened it behind my neck. “So, what are we doing today?” she asked. It’s the standard question, the one I’d heard a hundred times before. The one I’d been preparing for.

“Short on the sides,” I told her. “Flat on the top. Not too short on top, just a little shorter.”

“So, you want a flat top,” she checked, and I confirmed. “You want the sides cut square, not angled like a military cut, right?” Again, I approved her call. “And on top, you want me to clean it up but not go too short.”

Yes! Kristin still knew exactly what I wanted. She understood. That’s why I came back.

She smiled and set to work, selecting a clipper from an assortment on the cabinet at the side of the chair.

She commenced shearing the back and sides of my head. “Did I cut your hair before?” she casually inquired.

“A long time ago, when you worked at Heritage,” I informed her.

“Yeah, that was a long time ago. I heard Max sold the shop and the girls who worked there left.”

“You cut my hair two or three times, then you quit.”

“I only worked there on Mondays. It was too far to drive. I still got some customers who come from there.”

So, I was not the only guy who appreciated Kristin’s skill. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“You still live there?” she asked.

“Near there,” I answered, hoping she’d be impressed with the length to which I’d gone to go to reconnect with her.

“How did you find me?” she continued.

“I found you on the Internet. You’d be surprised what you can find on the Internet,” I explained.

As she began carving the vertical walls on the upper section on each side of my head, our conversation turned to other subjects. She talked about her teenage daughter’s summer job scooping ice cream, and how the daughter spends a large part of her earnings on cosmetics; her hairy Italian father; her second job bartending for the lady who was having her hair colored. I didn’t contribute much to the conversation; I was too absorbed watching how she skillfully sculpted my gray hair into an exact replica of the earlier haircut I loved.

I was pleased with Kristin’s artistry up to that point, but she had not yet applied the clippers to the top of my head, the most critical part of this haircut. I waited to see whether she could duplicate her previous creations.

Her chatter slowed noticeably, but never completely stopped, as she aimed her clippers at the top of my head and carefully mowed the thicket of gray hair she had coaxed into an upright position. I sat at rigid attention as she deftly passed the buzzing blades over my head, skimming the surface of my upright hair.

Following my instructions to the letter, she trimmed the hair covering my crown by a fraction of an inch—no more than half an inch, perhaps as little as one-quarter. But what a difference it made! Kristin transformed what minutes earlier had been an uneven carpet of bristles into a flawless level surface. I was in awe of her expertise. Once again, I was thrilled to see my favorite haircut realized.
“Well, what d’ya think? This what you had in mind?” she wanted to know when she finished.

I hesitated to express my delight. I didn’t want to seem overly enthusiastic. “Yeah, that looks good,” I said, trying to keep my cool.

“Not too long, is it?”

“No, it’s just right,” I declared.

The rest of the operation—shaving my neck, trimming my eyebrows—was anticlimactic. The whole encounter lasted less than twenty-five minutes.

Kristin removed the cape, shook out the severed hair and escorted me to the cash register. I handed her a twenty. “Keep the change,” I said.

Then she asked for my name. “Why do you need that?” I inquired.

“Each time you come back I’ll make a check next to your name. After nine haircuts, the tenth one is on the house.”

She didn’t have to bother with the check marks. I knew I’d be her regular customer from now on. I needed no incentive other than the superb haircuts she administers.

“Come back again,” she called as I headed for the door.

“I’ll be back in a couple of weeks,” I pledged. This was one promise I fully intended to keep. Already I was making plans for my second pilgrimage to River City Cutters.

On the drive back home, I kept glancing in the rearview mirror, checking out my fresh haircut. Each time a satisfied smile spread across my face, delighted I’d found Kristin again.

It’s nearly six months later. My flat top is noticeably longer and I’m looking at the calendar to choose the date for my return to River City Cutters and Kristin. I mentally circle February 13 as the day for my next encounter with the best barber in the world. I consider several changes to my initial haircut, imagining subtle variations in the look I want. Shall it tell her to cut it shorter on top? Skintight on the sides? Maybe a little longer all over?

Whatever the outcome, I know I’ll be counting the days with mounting anticipation. There’s a special bond between me and my remarkable barber. It’s one I hope will continue for many years to come.