Frank
Already at elementary school, Johannes was a fan of the soccer club Hamburger Sportverein (HSV) and joined the club. His father took him with him from time to time to the home games of HSV, which was very successful in the German Bundesliga.
In 2010, Johannes, known as Jo, earned his first money as a plumber trainee in Hamburg and afforded himself a season ticket for HSV. He drove to every away and home game and was an ardent supporter. In addition to this hobby, he grew his blond, wavy hair. As a child, his mother let his hair grow down to his shoulders and he was always the eye-catcher with his light blond curls, although he was often mistaken for a girl. Before starting school, his father took him to the hairdresser, where he was given a practical hedgehog cut. It was a traumatic experience for him when the hairdresser shaved him with a clipper and filled his cape with hair and he stood ankle-deep in his hair afterwards. His friends made fun of him and teased him as a shorn sheep. He desperately wanted long hair again, but his father regularly dragged him to get a haircut before his hair covered his ears.
When he finished school, he bet his father and friends that he would grow his hair until HSV would be relegated. In return, they were to finance his annual ticket. HSV was a founding member of the Bundesliga and had never been relegated in the last 50 years. Since HSV’s performances were getting worse and worse, everyone thought that relegation was imminent, and that Johannes Haar would grow for a year at most. But things turned out differently. Since the end of the 2010/11 season, Jo has been growing his hair. In 2011/12 they were already shoulder-length, and his father was already about to make an appointment at the hairdresser when HSV was just able to save itself to 15th place. In the 2012/13 season, the club sensationally finished in 7th place in the table! Jo loved black leather clothing and put on a long coat in the cold season, where his hair came into its own. He stood in front of the mirror every morning and brushed his hair extensively with a side parting and made himself a ponytail that now covered half of his back. He was sure that the old dinosaur HSV would never be relegated. His father hated his chest-length side parting, which Jo kept brushing back because it kept falling into his eyes. In addition, he constantly boasted about his manhood, which annoyed his friends. But to the chagrin of his father and friends, it would be a while before Jo had to redeem his bet. In 2013/14 and 2014/15, it was almost that time when HSV saved itself in the relegation play-off at the last minute. The dinosaur of the Bundesliga survived the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons. The newspapers had become aware of him and published pictures of him and his now mega-long mane. He was considered HSV’s most loyal fan and a symbol of the perseverance of his beloved team. His growing hair length showed how HSV held up in the Bundesliga.
At the end of the 2017/18 season, things became critical again and the decisive game against Borussia Mönchengladbach took place on 12.05.2018. After a win, HSV would be back in the relegation and, in Jo’s opinion, would clearly win it as always.
A victory of the competitor VFL Wolfsburg against 1.FC Cologne was out of the question!
Before the start of the game, Jo stood in front of the mirror and admired his mane, which reached his waist at the front and over his butt at the back. The mat was neat and without split ends. It was an expensive bet for his father and friends, and it would be even more expensive. He smiled and decided to celebrate the day on 12.5.2018 to wear his hair down for once. His black leather coat was two-thirds covered with his wavy, light blond curls and looked like a golden carpet. He would never voluntarily part with this splendor and stroked his waist-length side parting behind his ear! His club, HSV, could be relied on. So, he marched full of optimism together with his father and friends to HSV’s last game of the season and HSV won 2-1 as expected and Jo rejoiced about staying in the league. Everything was fine! But his father stared at his mobile phone to call up the other results of the last matchday. His father told him with a grin that Wolfsburg had beaten Cologne 4-1 and were level on points in the table. However, due to the better goal difference, Wolfsburg had pushed HSV to 15th place!
This was the first time in the club’s history that HSV had been relegated!
No, that couldn’t be! He was horrified! Deeply shocked, he wanted to leave the stadium in a hurry, but his friends circled him and held him by the arms. He resisted and his long side parting covered half his face. So they escorted him out of the stadium together with his father and drove with him to the nearest hair salon. In front of the shop called Harry’s Barbershop, they let him out, surrounded him and gave him a cigarette. While he smoked his cigarette with red eyes, his father took a few photos of him from all sides. Then they happily grabbed him by the arms and dragged him into the salon while he begged for mercy. He was obviously already expected there. The shop was empty and a hairdresser with short-cropped hair and tattoos up to his neck welcomed the cheering crowd. The hairdresser was around 30 years old, wore tight jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, which made his tattoos stand out even more. The jeans were rolled up so that his black Doc Martens boots could be seen. He had already cleared one of the old-fashioned barber’s chairs when the group entered. They took off Johannes’ coat, put him in the hairdresser’s chair and held me until his resistance subsided and the hairdresser had tied a ruff and a plastic cape around him without emotion. To do this, he had to push the long mane back and forth again and again in order to be able to close the ruff and cape at the neck.
The barber combed out his long mane with relish, and Jo could see in the mirror that it almost completely covered the backrest at the back. The barber said sternly: “There are two rules here in the shop. 1) If you sit in the chair, you get one thing: a short haircut. 2) We’re actually making short work of bombers like you here.” He pointed to the wall next to him. Like trophies, four braids of other men hung there, who had probably dared to make their way into this shop with long hair. Two were blond, one smooth, one strongly curly. Another is quite short, brown and wavy. The fourth was quite thin and black. None of them, however, came close to Jo’s magnificence. His attention was suddenly forced forward again as the hairdresser drove on: “The clippers are started in no time at all and the shit is down. But your crew has come up with something else for you.” Johannes listened attentively. Would he perhaps have a chance to get off scot-free after all? While he was still hoping, his father took a pair of scissors out of his pocket, grabbed a long strand of his side parting and cut it off above his eyebrow and let it slide slowly into his lap. He passed the scissors on to each of Jo’s friends, who were now allowed to cut off long wavy strands themselves. Jo now had a kind of mullet, a short fringe in front, long and wavy at the back and sides. Then the hairdresser’s voice sounded again: “You look like you like heavy metal.” He held a massive black clipper in front of Jo’s face. “Let’s see what you think of this metal…” He took down the plastic attachment so that the bare blades were visible. With a click, he fired it up and a sonorous hum filled the room. The hairdresser stepped behind Jo, pressed his head on his chest, with my mark Jo felt a tickle in his neck. The still cold metal of the machine whirred up the back of his head. Suddenly, it became unusually cool in the area that had just been sheared, when the scalp was exposed directly to the air for the first time in a long time. Jo could hardly think about it, because the barber was already starting a second lane and the third followed without a break. While the shaved hair fell to the ground behind him just now, now that his left side has been freed from the hair, his ear has been pragmatically pushed down. Long strands of his hair slid down the cape and pooled in his lap. And now Jo could also see what was left of his mane: next to nothing. The hairdresser had chosen a machine that left minimal stubble on the bright white scalp.
Without a break, the shearing continued the right side. Jo was now shaved except for the fringes of different lengths on the top of his head. But these have also been reduced.
The machine was changed and the hairdresser consistently pulled it from the forehead towards the back of the head. The former head of hair was reduced to a short plush carpet.
Jo suddenly didn’t look like a slightly dreamy metal guy anymore, but like
a tough soldier. With the bare razor, the hairdresser cleaned the neck and the bow around the ears. The cape and the floor were covered all over with hair, and the barber was standing in it up to the ankles of his boots when he removed the cape and the paper ruff.
Jo looked in let the mirror and his eyes filled with tears. He felt humilated and was sad because of
HSV- desaster. His superlong Hair was now history, and nothing would be the same again.
