TheNightBarber
The rain, which had been threatening all afternoon with the dreary consistency of a dripping faucet, finally broke just as Arthur was leaving his apartment. He was not a man given to wild impulses—his life was usually a neatly ordered stack of library books—but tonight, an unfamiliar vibration hummed beneath his sternum. He checked his reflection in the hallway mirror, adjusting the collar of a Black Flag t-shirt he had, with considerable effort, hunted down at a vintage shop downtown. It was an awkward fit on his narrow shoulders, but Mandabee, the stylist with the kaleidoscope hair, had mentioned the band with unusual fondness between drags of her cigarette.
He had spent the hour prior staring at the shiny, waxed dome of his scalp. The High-Gloss Finishing Wax she had aggressively worked into his skin still held a mirror sheen under the hallway bulb. It was terrifying, and yet, there was a strange liberation in it. The maintenance was gone; the pretense was over.
He met her at Sushi Moto, a place of bright, clinical lighting and efficient service. She was waiting by the entrance, a stark slash of neon against the grey afternoon. Her hair—a jagged crest of electric blue, faded magenta, and sunflower yellow—seemed to vibrate under the fluorescent lamps. Thick black glasses perched on her nose, and the silver hoops in her nose and lip caught the light like tiny, sharp stars. She was wearing an oversized flannel shirt over a black dress, her dark ink spilling out over her hands and wrists. A fresh cigarette was already clamped between her lips.
As Arthur approached, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, heavy box. “For you,” he said.
Mandabee raised an eyebrow, taking the box and flipping it open. Inside was a brushed-chrome Zippo lighter, clean and weighted.
“Thought you might need a spare,” Arthur said. He pulled a matching chrome Zippo from his own pocket, flicked it open with a sharp clack, and struck the wheel. He stepped close and brought the flame to the tip of her cigarette. She leaned in, her dark eyes studying his face over the flame, and took a deep, lingering drag until the tip glowed cherry red. She blew a thick cloud of blue-gray smoke past his ear.
“Nice shirt,” she said, her voice a raspy purr around the dangling filter. “Black Flag. Didn’t think a librarian had it in him.”
“I contain multitudes,” Arthur said.
She let out a short, approving laugh. “Alright, librarian. Let’s eat.”
Inside, over delicate slices of tuna and yellowtail, Mandabee smoked almost continuously, tapping her ash into a small ceramic saucer the waiter reluctantly brought over. The smoke curled between them like a thin curtain, but Arthur didn’t mind.
“So,” she said, squinting through the haze as she held a pair of chopsticks with tattooed fingers. “You really spend all day telling people to be quiet?”
“Mostly I help people find things they didn’t know they were looking for,” Arthur said, dipping a piece of nigiri into soy sauce. “And I manage the history archives.”
“History,” she snorted, taking another drag from her cigarette, the smoke drifting out as she spoke. “Sounds dry. I prefer things happening right now. Loudly.”
“Noise has its place,” Arthur said, looking straight at her through the haze. “But sometimes the quiet is where you actually hear something important. Like realizing you need a radical change.” He touched his bare, polished temple.
Mandabee paused, her chopsticks mid-air. She looked at his glossy scalp, then up at his eyes. A genuine, unmocking smile touched her lips. “Touché, Arthur. Maybe you aren’t as boring as you look.”
“I told you,” he smiled, flicking his lighter open and closed with a quiet rhythm. “I’m full of surprises.”
After dinner, they walked through the cool, damp streets. The rain had cleared, leaving the asphalt slick and reflecting the amber streetlights. They stopped by Arthur’s sedan parked along the curb under the pale light of a streetlamp. Mandabee leaned back against the hood of the car, looking up at the rare, faint stars visible between the city shadows.
Arthur stepped up beside her. Without a word, she reached out, caught the collar of his Black Flag shirt, and pulled him down to her. They kissed right there on the warm hood of the car, surrounded by the quiet hum of late-night city traffic. Her lips tasted of menthol smoke, sweet soy sauce, and black coffee. Her silver lip ring pressed cold against his mouth, a sharp, thrilling contrast to the heat of her touch as her fingers traced the smooth, wax-polished back of his bare head.
They spent the rest of the night at her apartment—a chaotic sanctuary of band posters, lingering tobacco smoke, and scattered art supplies.
In the pale, gritty light of morning, Arthur woke to the sound of metal clicking. Mandabee was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing an oversized t-shirt, a freshly lit Winston already teetering from her lower lip. Smoke drifted lazily up toward the ceiling as she inspected a pair of clippers and a straight razor.
“Up,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep and gravel.
Arthur sat up, running a hand over his head. A slight, rough shadow of stubble had begun to sprout overnight.
“Sit on the stool,” she commanded, pointing with the razor.
Arthur obeyed, sitting naked to the waist on a wooden stool in the center of the room. Mandabee stood over him, her eyes sharp behind her black-rimmed glasses. She flicked the switch on the clippers, the motor buzzing loudly. She placed her palm firmly on his forehead, tilting his head back, and ran the clippers in slow, deliberate strips across his skull, shaving away the overnight growth down to the skin.
Once the stubble was leveled, she reached for a tub of thick shaving cream and smeared it across his head in heavy, wet strokes. She picked up the straight razor, wiping the long steel blade against a hand towel slung over her shoulder.
“Hold still,” she muttered around her cigarette.
She set the razor against the crown of his head and dragged it down in smooth, practiced passes. The steel made a crisp, scraping crunch as it removed every trace of hair and lather. Arthur sat motionless, feeling the cold steel, the warmth of her hand pressing against his scalp, and the faint heat of her cigarette glowing just inches from his cheek. She worked methodically, shaving around the contours of his skull, behind his ears, and down the back of his neck until his skin was completely bare.
She wiped his head with a warm damp towel, then worked a fresh dab of high-gloss wax into his scalp with her palms, buffing it until it caught the morning light in a bright, polished sheen.
“There,” she said, leaning in close and blowing a tiny smoke ring against his cheek. “You’re going to have to get used to being bald. It’s your look now.”
She set the razor down and grabbed her jacket. “Dress up. We’re going out.”
She led him three blocks down to a small, narrow tattoo shop that smelled of green soap and antiseptic. The artist, a burly man covered in traditional ink, nodded to Mandabee as they walked in.
“This is the librarian,” Mandabee told him. “He needs my name.”
Arthur sat back in the heavy leather reclining chair, rolling up the sleeve of his Black Flag shirt. Mandabee drew the design herself on a transfer paper—a classic, bold traditional heart wrapped in a banner, with heavy black outlines.
The artist prepped Arthur’s inner bicep, wiping the skin with alcohol, and pressed the stencil into place. Arthur looked down: inside the sharp outline of the heart, written in clean, bold script, was the name Mandabee.
The tattoo gun hummed to life with a high-pitched, electric buzz. As the needle bit into the tender skin of his inner arm, a sharp, burning sting flared up. Arthur didn’t flinch. He watched the dark ink fill the outline, the artist wiping away blood and excess ink with paper towels.
Mandabee stood right beside the chair the entire time, leaning against the armrest, lighting cigarette after cigarette with the chrome Zippo he had given her. She watched the needle trace her name into his flesh with an intense, quiet satisfaction.
When the artist finished, he cleaned the arm and slapped a clear bandage over the fresh, red tattoo. The heart stood out in bright, saturated crimson, the banner sharp and dark, sealing her name onto his skin forever.
Arthur looked up from his arm to Mandabee. She was smiling—a real, soft smile without a trace of mockery—as she tucked her lighter into her pocket and held out her hand to help him up from the chair.
