Close Enough for Rock ‘n’ Roll?

“Oh my God, I love his hair!” Rachel shouted to her friend Anna as they looked across the bar at the band tearing through classic rock covers, their second set of the night for a crowd of a hundred people eager to leave their work weeks behind them. Anna looked where her friend was pointing and noticed the bass player. With his riotous Robert Plant curls cascading past his shoulder blades and his John Lennon-esque beard covering his neck, he was exactly her best friend’s type.

Rachel was a rock ‘n’ roll girl. Her arms bore gorgeous, intricate sleeve tattoos and her own hair hung to her waist, dyed jet black with vibrant purple streaks shooting through it. Friends since elementary school, Anna knew Rachel had never dated a guy with hair shorter than shoulder length. Rachel loved the fuck the establishment vibe that came with a guy with long hair. But it ran deeper than that. Running her hands through a partner’s hair, braiding it for them, pulling it back in ponytails, and raking her fingers through it during sex was a kink-bordering-on-fetish for Rachel.

Even undercuts were a dealbreaker. Why, Rachel wondered, would any guy even shave off half of his beautiful hair? Just the thought of touching those short bristles made Rachel cringe with regret at the sexy could-have-been life carelessly shaved short.  So Anna knew where their night was headed. As soon as the set was over, she was ready to follow Rachel, weaving their way through the crowd, so she could talk to this musician with the wild mane.

Though talking was a bit more of a challenge than Rachel expected.

Given his hair and beard, it seemed fitting Eddie played in a band. Though, when he mentioned this to anyone who knew him in his day-to-day life they were always surprised. Despite his rock ‘n’ roll appearance, Eddie was a softspoken introvert who spent his life doing his best to avoid conversations and being asked endlessly to repeat himself when he found himself stuck in one.

This was his ever-present cross to bear…except when he was on stage. His base guitar hanging around his shoulders, music reverberating around the room, he came alive. He played loud, passionately, and with a skill that would’ve lent itself to creating his own tunes. But Eddie liked the classics and bringing that music alive to people in bars, fire halls, and the occasional festival every week let him communicate with a clarity and confidence he could rarely muster in regular conversation. A confidence and a clarity which where failing him now.

“Um, excuse me?”

“I said you sounded so good! I’m Rachel and this is my friend, Anna.”

“Oh, hi. Thank you.”

“What?” Rachel asked over the background hum of the bar.

“Uh, thank you,” Eddie repeated as he turned to leave.

“What’s your name?” Rachel asked, pulling him back into the conversation.

“Eddie.”

“What? I’m sorry,” Rachel asked leaning in closer in an attempt to hear.

“Eddie, sorry,” Eddie apologized.

The awkward exchange continued but Rachel persevered. She wasn’t letting Eddie or his hair out of her sight until she got his number.

Her persistence paid off. One date led to another and soon they found themselves in the first flush of a new romance. Eddie’s quietness didn’t bother Rachel. Her extroversion more than made up for what Eddie lacked and he came to enjoy having her as a conversational shield when they went out. Rachel sensed immediately that Eddie was a sweet, caring guy and, while talking to others wasn’t a strength of his, he was soon able to open up with her. An emotional intimacy bloomed alongside their physical intimacy.

“I’ve never dated a guy with sexier hair!” Rachel gushed to Anna. “I often cum just thinking about it before we’re even together. And once I get my hands in it…”

“I know!” Anna laughed. “You tell me this every day. I’m just glad you met someone as kind as Eddie. That’s not always your strength but you two click emotionally, intellectually, you like the same movies, the same music, you…”

“And his hair!” Rachel cut in.

“Yes,” Anna said throwing her hands up in faux-exasperation, “he has a fuck ton of gorgeous hair. You’ve finally found the perfect guy. Your parents are going to love him.”

Having dated for three months, Rachel decided it was time for Eddie to meet her parents. They were coming into town tomorrow and dinner was arranged. While both she and Anna knew how conservative her parents were, Rachel agreed they were going to love Eddie, his super sexy rock ‘n’ roll hair and all.

Understandably then, Rachel was more than a little nervous the next morning when Eddie told her was getting his hair cut before her parents arrived.

“You’re what?” she asked a second time.

“Getting my hair cut,” Eddie said for the third time. “Listen, it’s not a big deal. You said your parents were pretty conservative so…”

“But I’M not! I love you and I love your hair and fuck anyone who doesn’t like it!” Rachel cut him off.

“I’m not getting it cut short!” Eddie said frantically. “God, no. I’ve had long hair my entire life.” Eddie came by his love of classic rock honestly. His parents had been old hippies; the shortest hair he ever had was when he was born and he spent his youth being mistaken for a girl. His hair had never been above his shoulders since it first grew to touch them.

Reassuringly Eddie reminded Rachel of this, “My hair is always long but I normally get it trimmed once a year to keep it healthy. And I’m overdue. I’ve not had a haircut in over a year and a half. Plus, I figured clean, healthy ends may get me some points with your parents.”

“Babe, I love you, but that’s not gonna work,” Rachel said pulling him to her and giving him a quick kiss. “If they can’t see your ears, they aren’t gonna like your hair.”

Eddie blanched at the thought while Rachel continued, “But I promise they’ll like you.”

As reassuring as that may be, Eddie still felt loads of extra anxiety swirling in his stomach at the idea of meeting and having to make conversation with Rachel’s parents all night. So he felt a little swell of relief when he pulled into the parking lot of the chain salon he went to. This will help, Eddie thought as he walked in. It’ll make me feel better anyway.

While he was far from a frequent visitor, he loved this place because the chain stored his haircut preference with his phone number. One more awkward interaction he didn’t have to deal with. Go in, give his number, endure the minimal small talk while he got his trim, and then he’d be back in his car, riding home to shower before the impending parental gauntlet.

Eddie was greeted by a sunny woman with dark hair that hung to her shoulders. He noted a bit of shaved hair peaking out above her ear and Eddie heard Rachel’s regular diatribe against undercuts in his mind. “Hi there!” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Um, no,” Eddie said.

“I’m sorry?” the stylist asked.

“No,” Eddie repeated with a little more force.

“Okay, that’s fine,” she reassured him, “we’ve got lots of time today. I’m Tina and I can take you right now. What’s your phone number? Have you been here before?”

This time took three repetitions but Tina was soon pulling his number up on the computer. Her eyes got big as she looked at her screen and said, “Wow! It’s been awhile since you’ve been here!”

“Yeah,” Eddie said awkwardly, “life, uh, you know? But I’m meeting my girlfriend’s parents tonight and I figured I should get my haircut.”

“I’m sorry?” Tina asked.

“Uh, my girlfriend’s parents,” he repeated. “I’m meeting them. They can be a bit conservative so…”

“Gotcha. Well I can fix you up!” Tina said enthusiastically. “Come on, let’s get started.”

As Eddie settled into the chair he prayed his part of the conversation was over. Hair stylists are a chatty lot by nature, good at making conversation and filing the silence. Eddie found, if he’s lucky, a few well timed “yes”s and “hmm”s could get him all the way through his haircut with nothing more being asked of him. Given the night he had ahead of himself, Eddie desperately hoped that would be the case this afternoon. He needed to save all the anxiety-tinged social interaction energy he had for dinner.

Fluffing his wild mane of curls out over his shoulders Tina asked, “Alright? Are you ready?”

“Mm,” Eddie said with a little nod of his head.

“This is going to be the most fun I’ve had all day!” Tina said. Given what I have to do tonight, Eddie thought, that’s probably true for me, too.

Eddie noted a high pitched whine kick up behind him but his attention was with the anxiety doing summersaults in his stomach. He felt Tina lift a section of hair on the back of his head and then felt…short little strokes – up, away, up, away, up, away – slowly moving up the back of his head. Shifting his attention from his anxiety, he tried to sort what he was feeling. It was strange…but it felt good! It tickled, leaving goosebumps dancing on his neck and arms.

Was this a head massage? Does this place do head massages now? Eddie wondered as the tingling moved up his nape, over his occipital bone, and pulled away after cresting his crown.

“There!” Tina said with a triumphant flourish as she held her hand aloft, a massive chunk of curly hair in her fist. “I can’t believe how much hair I’m holding and you can hardly notice in the back. Your hair is so thick! This is going to feel so good once I’m done. I’m sure your girl’s parents will love it, too.”

Comprehension and horror dawned simultaneously for Eddie as Tina dropped the eighteen inch hunk of wild curls to the floor.

That’s my hair. That’s my hair…did she…? Why is she…? Is she cutting off my hair…?

The anxiety in Eddie’s stomach was quickly forgotten, replaced with roiling nausea. Before he could begin to process what had just happened, Tina had pulled another enormous chunk of hair away from his head, dropped it on the floor, and began her third pass, slowly working her clippers through his thick mane.

Bzzzzzzzzt, bzzzzzzzzzzzt, bzzzzzzzzzt.

“Has your girlfriend ever seen you with short hair?” Tina asked as she dumped more of Eddie’s curls unceremoniously in the ever-growing pile on the floor. He couldn’t begin to form the word “no” much less utter it as Tina continued, “She’s going to love this. You have beautiful hair – I mean that! this is so pretty part of me feels bad cutting it all off – but women always love a guy with short hair better. You just look sexier, so clean cut. She’s not gonna be able to take her hands off your head all night.”

Rachel! Oh my God, Rachel! Eddie thought as his shock and fear plunged to a new depth. What is she going to say? She loves my hair as much as I do…did…

Never having his hair cut with clippers, Eddie didn’t notice the guardless blades as Tina lifted the first lock of hair above his right ear. But his eyes got wide and luck alone kept him from throwing up when he saw the stark white skin left behind after the clippers’ pass.

My hair’s gone. Oh my God, it’s gone. How long until it’s…I can’t undo this…why is this happening?

“For dramatic flourish,” Tina said with a wink as she began dropping the cut off hair in his lap. Eddie couldn’t get his mind around these bizarre sensations, the growing weight of hair piling up on his legs with the growing lightness on his head.

The foreign feeling of the salon’s A/C was absolutely frigid on his bare skin. With the sides and back shaved clean, the awkwardly shorn curls on top of his head made him look like some sort of crazy pineapple. Before he could take it in, Tina was running the clippers back over the top of his head – front to back, front to back, front to back – each pass sending a shower of wild curls down his neck, sticking to his collar and shoulders. Though now the clippers weren’t leaving bare skin in their wake. An inch of too-short-to curl hair remained, shocked into standing nearly straight up after having been relieved of their life-long length.

My band! Eddie panicked. I can’t play rock ‘n’ roll looking like a marine! What will my bandmates say??

“This is my favorite part!” Tina said. “I hardly ever get to use this! Flat tops are the most fun I can have giving a haircut so it makes me sad no one really wants them anymore. But look how fun this is!” Tina showed Eddie a wide comb with what appeared to be a tiny level in the handle. “I love my flat top comb! This is how I make sure it’s perfectly straight,” Tina explained.

Inserting the comb into Eddie’s hair Tina instructed, “Now don’t move.” Working slowly and with meticulous precision, she buzzed off anything above the teeth of the comb. “I know it’s been awhile since you had your hair cut but remember – you need to be perfectly still for this to come out right.”

Eddie didn’t think he could move if his life depended on it. It was as though he was frozen in time, trapped in some twisted horror movie, as everything he was rained down in little tufts, past his face to land all over his shoulders.

Finally the buzzing stopped. Tina set her flat top comb and her clippers on the counter before picking up another, smaller tool. When she turned it on, another whine followed.

“We’re not allowed to use straight razors here but the foil shaver will get the job done,” Tina told Eddie as she began slowly sliding this new buzzing tool over his stark white skin. It wasn’t just the sides and back she was buzzing again but she moved it slowly over the top of the crown of his head, too.

“Voilà!” Tina proclaimed. “Now you’re looking like your old self!” She held up a mirror for him to see the back of his head as he stared in shock at the mirror before him.

Eddie couldn’t understand what he was seeing. The hair on the front of his head was standing stock straight and square, no more than 1/8^th of an inch high, level with the completely bald crown of his head. Everything else was shaved clean.

“How good does this feel?” Tina asked as she rubbed her hands over his freshly buzzed scalp. Eddie struggled to balance the sickness he felt at her fingers on his bare head with the…was that arousal?…when her fingers danced over the nearly-nonexistent stubble. What’s happening? he wondered again.

“Okay, we’re almost done,” Tina said as turned on a smaller trimmer and – much to Eddie’s reborn horror – began running it down his right cheek! Just like his hair, his beard, which had hung to his chest for over five years, was now sliding from his face to join his discarded rock ‘n’ roll curls.

When Tina was finally finished Eddie stared in the mirror at a reflection he couldn’t reconcile with his sense of self. The man starring back at him from the mirror had an ultra short flat top haircut – Do people in the military even have it this short? he wondered – complimented by the only facial hair which remained, a nice, neat moustache sitting atop his lip.

Tina pulled the cape from around Eddie’s shoulders, sending an unimaginably big pile of hair to join the piles of his identity already strewn on the floor. He rose on shaky feet, his boots not even making contact with the floor for his first few steps, treading instead on the cushion of what used to be his hair.

Stepping out of the salon, the wind hit Eddie’s bare head for the first time and chills went through his body. Another sort of chill came when he looked down at his receipt and noticed the name. It wasn’t his. This wasn’t some stylist gone rogue; it wasn’t some horribly mean prank. She gave me the right haircut, Eddie realized, it just wasn’t mine. I didn’t say my phone number clearly.

When her parents arrived hours later, Rachel was still in her bedroom crying, her waist-length hair spilling around her on the bed with her face buried in her arms. Eddie couldn’t begin to console her. His own heart heavy with sadness, too. This haircut was so square and so conservative and so not him – not now or ever.

But then there was the other thing. The part Eddie found more inexplicable than hair clippers being dragged all over his head. The part where, when he tentatively ran his hand over the short, stiff bristles of his flat top and the shaved-to-the-skin sides and back for the first time…he came. Rachel always said this happened when she played with his long hair and now it was happening to him…but with very different hair.

Eddie didn’t know what this meant for his relationship, for his place in his band, for his style, for his rock ‘n’ roll image, or for his very own sense of self. He certainly didn’t know what it meant that he couldn’t stop touching his head, arousal flashing each time he found stubble where his wild curls were supposed to be.

And he worried what it meant to admit he might want his hair like this for a long time…