Widow's Dozen by Marek Waldorf

Author:Marek Waldorf [Waldorf, Marek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781933527789
Publisher: Turtle Point Press
Published: 2014-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN CLUES

“Most heads are routine,” he says. “Set the attachment at one of eight lengths, then slide the clipper up the back stretch, cruising from base to crown. The trick to it is there’s no trick to it. Confidence, son! If coffee’s making your hands shake, stop drinking the stuff. How can the customer trust you if your hands tremble all the time? See, one of the things you’re doing, you’re reassuring him . . . laying to rest any second thoughts he might be having about coming in, in the first place.”

It wasn’t a week, and Ward had already had it up to here with his talkative mentor, Frank Reed aka Frank the Barber, in particular his habit of calling Ward son whenever he wasn’t using “Billy.”

“Why? Who knows why? Men are complicated creatures. He figures he wants change and fears it at the same time.”

As a matter of fact, the customer was looking askance at the chair Frank had tilted back for him, the barber’s prawn-shaped torso tipped over it in a white smock, his expression smoothed through years of surreptitious practice in the wall-length mirror opposite, with the disinfectant drying on his scissors—fresh from the pickle jar.

“Everything you need to know can be learned from the shape of the head, from the parts to the patterns of the hair across it. Look. Here, here, and here. These are yours. The preferences of the patron come in second—a distant second. This is where every one of you kids goes wrong at first . . . by actually listening to their preferences. See this customer? What do you think he asked for when he first came to me, when was it? Six years ago? How can a layman judge what’s right for his own head? Do you trust what you see in a mirror? ‘A Dreyfus?’ I told Larry—go ahead, tell Billy, Larry, didn’t I say that? Exactly? ‘With those ears,’ I told him straight, ‘not a chance! Try the Soviet Bachelor instead.’ And you can see how well that’s worked for both of us—because once I’ve found the right haircut for one of these fellas—once they see it grown out after, what—three weeks?—they’ll be back. They’ll be asking for the same exact haircut their whole lives, with only minor corrections for age and balding patterns. And if they ever do leave the County—ha!—they’ll remember me and never feel as settled into their haircuts of the future. Never. That’s the stature you could look forward to one day, son—I’m not saying you will, but it’s something to aim for. Now this unfortunate gentleman—” he spread his hand out on top of the next customer’s mixed-bag crown, turning the head just a hair so that the man faced Ward with a starved, sour look—“hair’s way too fine for a Newman—to get a real Newman, it needs to start curling in at least three-quarters of an inch. Witch hazel should produce results in less than three months. An old barber’s trick. A natural or a line? There is no hairline on this particular neck.

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