Origins of a fetish, part 2: Confusion and change

Thanks everyone for reading part 1!

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Between the ages of about 8 and 13 (mid 80s to early 90s), the fear and anxiety gave way to curiosity. If one of my classmates came to school with a fresh short haircut, I’d want to pet the buzzed parts. A lot of kids would, too, so the behavior wasn’t too unusual. We’d even pretend giving each other buzz cuts. I’d also ask lots of questions about the cutting process. They would gladly talk about it, only further fueling the intrigue.

The unpleasant haircuts continued, whether at home by mom, a chain salon, or elsewhere. One time when I was 8, she took me to a family friend’s house for a haircut. Her friend’s father was a retired barber from Russia, who perhaps missed his trade and offered to take care of my mop. I remember hearing about the arrangement and dreading it for days. I even remember, that day, my mom saying , “We’re taking you to that barber today. He’s gonna cut this nice hair”. My parents probably thought they were doing me a favor since I had the world’s worst bedhead and often couldn’t be bothered to comb my hair. To me, it felt like an execution. I remember my father enthusiastically told my mom to make sure the barber brought “all of his machines”. My heart sank.

The old man sat me outside. He opened a briefcase on the table next to the chair where I sat. It was full of manual clippers! Each clipper cut to a different length, much like the plastic guide combs used today. and went to town. Either he didn’t speak any English or I was too shy to try to talk to him. I had no idea what to expect; I just knew it would be shorter than I’d like. Lots of brandishing of clippers and shears as you might see in a foreign film. I remember thinking, “Is he going to use ALL of those on me?”.

From my 8 year old point of view, the haircut seemed to take forever. I wasn’t too crazy about the finished product, but from what little I remember, the quality of the haircut was very good.  I think it was a crew cut. He hadn’t lost his touch. After the haircut, my mom picked me up. I don’t remember her reaction, but I do remember my mom’s friend, the barber’s daughter, with her bottle blonde shag/mullet telling me that next time I can tell him how I want it done “and so on”, in her thick Russian accent. That information would have been useful to me earlier!

Later that day, I remember my a-hole Karate Instructor (that’s a whole other story) casually noticing. He said “A fresh haircut for you?”, as I walked into the Dojo later than night. My sister called me a meat head. I was 8 and she was 12. It sucked getting a haircut that I was embarrassed about. I hated it when anyone noticed.

“You got a your hair cut!”

*GRRR*

In retrospect, a lot of this misery could have been prevented if we’d spent a few seconds glancing through a hairstyle book or two while sitting in the waiting area.

My parents never took me back to him. Maybe they must have thought it was too short. Sometime in the mid 90s, my father, who was an internist at the time, had to talk to a patient’s family. He wanted to know whether they wanted to resuscitate her or not. After that difficult discussion, the man he talked to recognized him and told him, “You had a little boy. I gave him a haircut and your daughter was friends with my granddaughter.” He mentioned it when he got home that day, but not in any overly excited way. It was an observation. I remember cringing on the inside, feeling sad for the family and remembering that afternoon ten years earlier.

Either way, the shearing with old-school barbering tools was an experience I’ll never forget. It put a charge in me. At one point, I snuck into my parent’s bathroom to take mom’s electric shaver and see if I could clean up the edges. That was probably the first time I took any kind of control over my circumstances. Thankfully, I was careful and didn’t make it worse. I even remember my mom asking why there was hair on the floor in the bathroom. I was 8 and old enough to know to just play dumb, do a somersault in the hallway, and shrug my shoulders.

**

After the “Soviet shearing” my mom would usually take me to “Fantastic Sam’s” while my dad would take us to “Supercuts”. Going to get a haircut with my mom was a little less unpleasant.  She didn’t micromanage like my father did, but he’s complain if he thought it wasn’t short enough.

On a particular visit to Fantastic Sam’s around 1987, I was secretly a little excited. The last time, I saw a woman getting a trim. She was pretty, with her 80s pixie cut, dark brown/black, poufy on top and shorter on the sides and back. There wasn’t much hair on the floor, so she was there for a clean-up. It was when when I saw stylist trim her neckline with black Wahl cordless trimmers that I felt the knot in my stomach. I was uneasy, but also interested. I wondered to myself why she didn’t have long hair like my mother or sister. Nevertheless, I wanted to watch. It also distracted me from my inevitable turn in the chair. Who knew watching something so routine would affect me like that?

That day, I remember two women in particular. The first was a little old lady with a gray/brown bob just below her ears. I remember she wanted the stylist to clip off all hair below the weight line of the bob. She used a gray cordless Wahl trimmer and warned the client that if she trims any higher, it would resemble her bowl cut. It was fun to watch. That stylist was memorable, because she was a little person, but also on the curvy side, and always changed up her thick blonde hair. I don’t recall her hair ever being longer than a neck-length bob.

The second client even more memorable. She was probably in her mid 40s-50s. Her silver-gray bob was getting touched up. I remember thinking she was very pretty. If I remember correctly, she had on a long white or light blue maxi-skirt, with a slit down the side showing off her toned legs, a tank top, and Birkenstock sandals. I remember the stylist used a big pair of gray Wahl clippers and a comb to finish the bottom at the  so it would just curl in. Wow!

Part 3 will dive into the the turning point where I realized it was much more than “just a haircut”.

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